Thousands of mourners gathered for the funeral of Italian cyclist Marco Pantani on Wednesday while investigators looked into the possibility he had been using cocaine as well as anti-depressants.
The 34-year-old, who thrilled cycling fans with his extrovert racing style, died at the weekend from accumulated fluid in the brain and lungs. He is set to be buried after a funeral mass in the same church where he was baptised.
Not since the celebrations after Pantani, known as "il Pirata" -- the pirate -- for the colourful bandana he wore, won the Tour de France in 1998 had so many flocked to his home town on Italy's north-eastern coast.
He was one of Italy's most popular sportsmen until the 1999 Giro d'Italia when he was thrown out of the race for failing a test for haematocrit -- an indicator, though not proof, of the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
The rider had been at the centre of a series of legal probes into doping and his body was found in a hotel suite in coastal Rimini on Saturday night. The pathologist in charge of his autopsy excluded violence as a cause of death.